From the Back Cover

“Supervision was done from the watchtowers that circled the camp.  The towers were equipped with machine guns and at night the floodlights lit up the camp.  There were also guards posted on the High Street and along the barracks at night.  We normally didn’t come into contact with the guards in the Street or on the towers.  Of course we avoided anything that would put us in the line of fire.  Even so, prisoners were shot from the towers.  I remember in April 1944, when one of our group was shot on the way to the toilet.

I have strong memories of, among others, the devil in human form, “red” Müller, who has innumerable prisoners on his conscience, and of the terrible beaters Wernicke and Hamer, of the sadist Herzog from the Shoe Kommando, Fritz Gaus and Heinz Reddehaase, of Chris the violent head of the kitchen, and last but not least Lübben the devourer of Jews and Trenkle, the head of the “dirt camp,” always drunk and always ready for abuse and I mustn’t forget the inhuman head of Labour Fritz Rauh.  And then the monster Kramer, the head of the camp, who permitted and encouraged all of these terrible things.  These few names personify the “hell of Bergen Belsen.”

We were ruled by the dregs of mankind.

from “That’s How It Was: A Report on Westerbork and Bergen Belsen” (1945) by Erich Marx